Good morning, Quartz readers!
What to watch for today
Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn continue their Brexit talks. The UK prime minister and the opposition leader will carry on their discussions in an 11th-hour bid to break the deadlock, after lawmakers yesterday narrowly voted in favor of asking the EU for an extension to the Brexit process. Meanwhile, German chancellor Angela Merkel will meet with Irish prime minister Leo Varadkar in Dublin to discuss Ireland’s border dilemma.
Ethiopia issues its preliminary report on the 737 Max crash. The initial findings may shed light on the role of the controversial flight-stabilization system that led to the grounding of the Boeing jets.
Donald Trump meets with Liu He. The US president and Chinese vice premier will meet at the White House as Beijing and Washington near a deal that would end the months-long trade war. Trump may also announce plans for a summit (paywall) with president Xi Jinping.
Benjamin Netanyahu meets with Vladimir Putin. The Israeli prime minister will meet with the Russian president just five days before Israel’s parliamentary elections in a bid to shore up his security and diplomatic credentials.
Elon Musk and the SEC face off in court over a tweet. The US regulator accused the Tesla CEO of breaking a fraud settlement when he tweeted about the company’s 2019 production figures. Separately, Tesla said yesterday that deliveries of its electric vehicles dropped by nearly a third in the first quarter of the year.
A busy day in space. A Russian supply mission to the International Space Station will be followed by the arrival of the first private probe in lunar orbit; the launch of four new communications satellites from French Guiana; the test-firing of a heavy SpaceX rocket, and a NASA spacecraft’s sun fly-by.
While you were sleeping
New Zealand police announced charges against the Christchurch shooter. The Australian gunman accused of killing 50 people in terror attacks at two mosques will face 50 murder and 39 attempted murder charges when he appears in court tomorrow.
Australia passed a sweeping social media law. The new legislation punishes social media companies with fines of up to 10% of their annual profit and up to three years in jail for their executives if they fail to quickly remove violent content, defined as videos that show terrorist attacks, murders, rape, or kidnapping. The law comes less than a month after the Christchurch terror attacks.
Carlos Ghosn was re-arrested. The former chief of the Nissan-Renault-Mitsubishi alliance was arrested for a fourth time in Tokyo on suspicion of aggravated breach of trust related to a Nissan dealer in Oman. Ghosn was released on bail last month after 108 days in detention, and had just tweeted yesterday that he plans to tell his side of the story next Thursday. His lawyer will host a press conference at 3:15pm local time.
US aviation regulators launched a new 737 Max review. The Federal Aviation Administration formed an international team headed by a top transportation official to review the safety of the grounded Boeing aircraft and to scrutinize anti-stall software suspected to have played a part in two fatal crashes since October.
Hundreds of millions of Facebook records were left on an unprotected server. Cybersecurity research firm Upguard found several instances of third-party Facebook developers improperly storing identification numbers, comments, reactions, and account names on Amazon cloud servers (paywall). The data was available for months if not years, before Facebook intervened to remove the data this week.
Quartz Obsession
Undersea cables: Data moves better down where it’s wetter. The cloud gets a lot of cred for running today’s internet, but it might be more accurate to call it “the sea”—that’s where you can find the roughly 380 fiber-optic cables that make up the web’s backbone, carrying about 95% of intercontinental voice and data traffic. Dive in here.
Membership
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Matters of debate
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Apple’s new ad highlights everything wrong with the company. It excels at delivering expensive, over-produced solutions to simple problems.
Millennials are sick of drinking. They’re looking for moderation in a culture that has long treated alcohol as all-or-nothing.
The next lunar mission should recover astronaut poop. Human fecal matter left on the moon could provide new insights into the ability of microbial life to survive in space.
Surprising discoveries
Twitter blocked a campaign by the French government using its own fake-news rules. The #OuiJeVote (“yes I vote”) initiative fell afoul of a law requiring transparency for promoted political tweets.
Patagonia doesn’t think its fleece vests are a good fit for finance bros. The retailer won’t supply co-branded products to companies that don’t share its ethics.
The porn industry is thirsty for crowdfunding. Many users too embarrassed to buy subscriptions are still willing to fund small production companies.
Where are the mothers in children’s books? A new analysis found they are often dead, absent, or nameless.
The likely last survivor of the US slave trade was identified. A British researcher found evidence (paywall) that a woman named Redoshi survived the Middle Passage at age 12 and lived until 1937.
Our best wishes for a productive day. Please send any news, comments, fleece vests, and mocktails to hi@qz.com. Join the next chapter of Quartz by downloading our app and becoming a member. Today’s Daily Brief was written by Mary Hui and edited by Isabella Steger.